Soteriology What is Atonement?

I want to welcome everyone to our lesson tonight. I know some of you are joining us online and some have come here to be together. We are going to be continuing tonight in our study of soteriology. Soteriology is the doctrine of salvation.

This is a part of our larger study which is an overview of Christian theology and doctrine. Last week we began with the first lesson. The title of that lesson was Saved From What? And if you were not here, the simplest answer of that question is that we are saved from the wrath of God.

As we said in the lesson last week, we are saved from God, by God, for God. We're saved from His wrath. We are saved by His grace. We are saved for His glory. Salvation is of the Lord, as it says in the Old Testament scriptures.

The Meaning of Atonement and Why the Bible Uses the Term

Tonight, we are going to look at part two, which is the definition of the atonement. You'll notice there are 10 parts to this lesson and I do not know how long each of these lessons will take, each of these parts, but I've tried to make them fit into one week sections, but you know me, that will probably not actually be the case, especially for tonight, because tonight we are going to be looking at the definition of the atonement.

How can a sinful man be made right with a holy God? From the moment man sinned, he was at war with God. His relationship with God was severed. He was the object of God's divine disfavor, and he was worthy of God's wrath.

Can you imagine if that's where the story ended? If you can imagine just for a moment, what if Genesis was simply, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Here is how He did it in these six miraculous days.

Here is the day He rested. Here is the explanation of how He created man. He gives man a singular command, do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gives man a wife. The woman goes and takes from the fruit of the tree.

She shares it with her husband. God brings His wrath immediately upon both.

Game over.

Story ended. Can you imagine, well you can't imagine, because if that's how the story ended, you wouldn't.

Be here.

If that was where the story finished, there would be no more story. But we are very aware of the fact that the message of Scripture does not end with the hopelessness of Genesis chapter 3. The Scripture is actually a whole book about hope.

There is a hope of restoration for the broken relationship that man has with God. There is hope of being redeemed from the lawless condition in which he fell. And there is hope of salvation. And that hope is founded on something called atonement.

And so this is the subject of tonight. What do we mean when we say atonement? What is atonement? Well, the word atonement is actually an interesting word because it's not one that really is found in the New Testament, even though the idea is found in the New Testament.

How many of you have a King James Bible with you tonight?

No one.

Interesting. That's surprising because in general I usually have at least somebody who has a King James.

Bible.

Most modern translations you will not find the word atonement in, and the King James Bible only has it once in the New Testament. The word atonement only comes in in Romans chapter 5 verse 11. So go there with me very briefly and let's look at that passage and we'll see how the ESV chooses to translate it.

Again, that is Romans chapter 5 verse 11. Is everyone there? Romans 5 11. It says in the English Standard Bible,. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received reconciliation.

Now if you don't have an ESV Bible, that word reconciliation may be translated different. That's the word that in the King James Bible is translated atonement. Does anyone have a different word at that place than reconciliation?

The New American Standard uses reconciliation. Does anyone have anything other than an ESV or NAS? Do you, brother? You have your ESV, right?

Okay.

All right.

I wasn't sure who all had what. I usually, like I said, usually I get at least a King James or a New King James. Andy is a New King James guy, and so I wonder if the New King James would have the word atonement.

I'm not sure.

Yes. No, it's reconciliation.

That's what you have is New King?

Okay.

So it's reconciliation. So it's interesting that that word doesn't show up again, even at that place, only in the King James Bible. And the reason why I bring it up is because it is such an important word, but it's a word that is based on a biblical principle, but not really a word that is used in the Bible.

Sort of like the word trinity, right? We all know the word trinity is not in the Bible, but the word trinity is a concept that is clearly taught in the Bible. The trinity, God is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one in essence, three in persons.

That is something that the Bible clearly teaches about the nature of God, but the word trinity is not there. In fact, if you ever have Jehovah's Witnesses want to argue with you about the trinity, one of the first things they'll tell you is the word trinity is not in the Bible, to which we have to say, absolutely.

That is true. But isn't it interesting that the word atonement also really doesn't have its place in the New Testament? We don't see it. Why do we use it then? We use it because the concept is clearly taught throughout the Bible, it is clearly taught in the New Testament.

Let us then ask the question, what is the concept of atonement? We've said this word several times. What is the concept? Well, I want to quote to you from Easton's dictionary. This is just one of the many dictionaries that's out there, the Bible word dictionaries.

Easton's is not really an exhaustive dictionary, but it's useful at times. And I think this time is one time when it is useful. The meaning of the word is simply at one meant, i .e. the state of being at one or being reconciled so that atonement is reconciliation.

Thus it is used to denote the effect which flows from the death of Christ. And I've shown this before, but I don't know if you've all seen it. The word atonement, and I'll switch to red just for a moment.

It really is the concept of being at one. That is where the word atone comes from. It comes from the idea of being at one. And therefore atonement is to be in the state of being at one or it is to be at one meant.

And so I think Easton's dictionary makes a simple way of saying, what does it mean to be at one with someone? Well, it means you were divided. It means you were separated and now you have been reconciled.

It means you were separated and now you've been brought back together. You who were apart have now been made at one. Restoration, yes, yes. Restoration, reconciliation, all of those things being at one.

When we study the atonement, we are studying what happened, what occurred in the death of Jesus Christ. The Bible is clear that in the death of Jesus Christ, we have received reconciliation. A good Bible verse to mention at this point, and in fact, let's go there and look at it, is Galatians 3.

I've been preaching through Galatians at set free for a while, so I've been enjoying being able to dive more into the context. But in Galatians 3, 13, we see Paul is expressing here what accomplished or rather what Christ accomplished on the cross.

And it says in Galatians 3, verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. That is the result of him going to the cross. He reconciled us to God. And again, as we saw in Romans 5, we have now been given reconciliation. And then if we go to 2nd Corinthians 5, you don't have to go there, but just in your mind, remember this, the apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5, not only were you reconciled to God, but you have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Your job now is to go out and preach the gospel so that other men might be reconciled to God. So in a sense, what is 2nd Corinthians 5 commanding us to do? Go out and preach atonement because you were reconciled, you were atoned.

Now you go and you preach to other men so that they might receive that atonement. And so really what Paul is saying in 2nd Corinthians 5 is that the atonement is the heart of the message. In fact, he says, we appeal to you, be reconciled to God.

It's as if God is appealing to men through us when we go out and we say, be reconciled to God, receive the atonement is what is being said. So in your notes, you will notice under the question, what is atonement?

What is reconciliation is another way of asking that question. You'll notice I have listed seven divergent theories about the atonement. Yes, Richard, you have a question. Yes, that's in 2nd Corinthians 5.

We are ambassadors of Christ. We preach the reconciliation. Yes, sir.

Yep.

Seven Divergent Theories of the Atonement

But under the question of what is the atonement, what is atonement? You'll notice I've given seven divergent theories. Now, what does divergent mean?

Wrong.

They have diverted or diverged from what I believe the Bible teaches. And somebody might say, well, why would you teach what's wrong? Well, we're going to look at the right view. What I believe is the right view.

What our elders believe is the right view. What I would say the Bible believes is the right view of the atonement. But before we do that, I just want to mention some of the wrong views, because I must admit in the history of the church, the question of the atonement, the question of what happened on the cross is not one that has had unilateral support.

There have been various arguments and divisions over the question of what actually happened on the cross. And I want to share some of these with you. I'm going to spend a little bit more time with others because I think there's some value in some looking at them a little closer.

But let me say this about these seven things. These things are all still taught in churches today. These are not things that have been lost to history. I'll give you an example. Just a few weeks ago when I was preparing for this, I prepared my Wednesday night lesson several weeks in advance because I want to know where I'm going.

I want to make sure that I'm consistent with my teaching. So oftentimes I'll be preparing four or five weeks ahead for what I'm teaching on Wednesday night. And as I was preparing this message, I came across a debate where two modern pastors were debating what the atonement was.

What happened on the cross? What is the atonement? The title of the message will grab you by the gizzard because the title of the debate was Monster God. Because the man who was debating was Brian Zond, very popular in the charismatic movement.

And he was saying, if you believe that God poured his wrath out on Christ for your sins, which is what I'm going to teach in a little while, just in case you tip my hand, that's a position I take. You believe God is a moral monster.

Now, the man he debated was Michael Brown. Now, Michael Brown, I have many issues with for as far as charismatic theology and stuff. But I will say this. He took a very good and strong biblical stand for penal substitutionary atonement, which is the view I believe is correct and biblical.

And he makes the biblical argument both from the Old Testament and the New Testament. So my encouragement to you would be if you have interest in diving into these divergent theories further, go home and look up Monster God debate with Brian Zond and Michael Brown.

And hear what the other side, because he will say, if you believe this about God, then you have an awful view of God. But here's the thing. When he tried to explain his position, it was it was a horrible mess, especially when they came to the cross examination.

By the way, if you ever want to really know how a debate's going, wait until you get to the cross examination, because anybody can sound good when they're the only one talking. But when they have to answer questions and when Zond had to answer questions about his position, the wheels fell off the cart almost immediately.

Just just fell apart. So I encourage you, you have the YouTube or the YouTube. You have YouTube. If you're watching from home, you definitely have YouTube because that's what we're streaming to now. Go and watch that debate.

It's two hours well spent because not only will you hear the bad arguments, but I believe Dr. Michael Brown provides some very good arguments based in Old Testament texts, because again, the sacrifice of Christ, the atonement of Christ is not founded just in the New Testament.

It's based on the system of sacrifice God created in the Old Testament. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and he is the one upon whom our sins are placed and he receives in himself the punishment we are due.

That's the atonement. That's what happens in the atonement. And therefore, it's all based in this Old Testament system that God provides to us in the law. Christ came under the law to fulfill the law that we could become adopted as sons and be reconciled to God.

So here's the the seven divergent theories. I'm going to, again, not spend a ton of time on these. I'm willing to give you my notes if you'd like to look further. I have taken a lot of this from the Moody Handbook of Theology.

That's just the best way I could, as far as trying to explain these, because some of them get a little little wonky. The ransom to Satan theory. This theory was developed by Origen, who lived between 185 and 254.

So this is a almost 2 ,000 year old position. And it advocated that Satan had people captive like a victor in a war. He had us captive. And this theory holds that God essentially sent Christ to pay a ransom to Satan for our sins.

That we were being ransomed because we were held under the bondage of Satan. And what makes this theory bad is that it places too high a view on Satan. And it makes the cross a payment to him. The Bible never says that.

The Bible never says the cross is intended to pay Satan's price for our sins. I don't believe the ransom to Satan theory stands, but it is an older theory that is believed by some. The next one is called the recapitulation theory.

This was advanced by Irenaeus. Also, who lived in the early church, 130 to 200. He taught that Christ went through all the phases of Adam's life and experienced, including the experience of sin. And in this way, Christ was able to succeed where Adam failed.

The element of truth is that Christ is known as the last Adam. However, Christ did not sin. And the idea that he did in any way experience sin is, I think, is unbiblical. And the theory is incomplete in that it neglects the atonement.

It is the death of Christ that saves, not his life. Even though we are saved by his righteousness, it's ultimately we are forgiven because of his payment of sin. Payment not to Satan, of course, but he did make a payment that we're going to see later.

The payment is to God himself. The next one is called the commercial theory. This one's a little hard to understand. This was not developed until Anselm, who lived between 1033 and 1109. So this is only about a thousand years old.

And he taught that through sin, God was robbed of the honor that was due him. This necessitated a resolution that could be achieved either through punishing sinners or through satisfaction. God chose to resolve the matter through satisfaction by the gift of his son.

Through his death, Christ brought honor to God and received a reward, which he passed on to sinners. The gift was forgiveness for the sinner and eternal life for those who live by the gospel. It's actually not that far off.

And that's why I say not all these are so divergent that they're horrible. But what the issue with this one is, is even though it does the right thing of changing the view from paying Satan now to paying God, which is in a sense, correct.

It ignores the vicarious suffering of Christ. Rather than emphasizing Christ dying for the penalty of sin, this view embraces the Roman Catholic concept of penance. Christ paid for certain sins. And then, of course, you have to pay for certain sins through penance.

And of course, we would say that is not true at all. You understand that in Roman Catholicism, that even though you receive justification through baptism, that you also have to maintain and work for those things in the process of giving of the confession.

And then once you give a confession, you might have penance, things that you have to do to essentially re-establish your place with God. And this, again, treating it as a commercial action. And I would say it's got some correct things, but a lot that is not good.

The moral influence theory was proposed by Abelard between 1079 and 1142. It advocated that the death of Christ was not necessary as an expiation for sin. Rather, through the death of Christ, God demonstrated his love for humanity in such a way that sinners' hearts will be softened and brought to repentance.

So essentially, Jesus is a moral character who takes punishment as an example to all of us. This is very similar to Brian Zahn's argument. If you go and watch the debate and listen, basically what he says is when Christ died on the cross, he wasn't taking the punishment we deserve.

He was taking the punishment we dish out. Hear that again. Christ wasn't taking the punishment we deserve. He was taking the punishment we dish out. And how did he respond? With forgiveness. Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do. Right. So Jesus is here, the moral example. So he's not taking the punishment we deserve. He's taking the punishment we dole out to him. And therefore, he didn't receive the wrath of God.

He received the wrath of us. You see how wildly different that is? It's very popular in liberal churches. I'll give you an example of why I say that. There is a song that states, For on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.

Our every sin on him was laid there in the death of Christ. I live. You guys heard that song before? When the I believe it was the Methodist Church, United Methodist Church, wanted to include that song in their hymn books.

They would not accept on that cross when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied because they do not believe that Christ was receiving the wrath of God. They don't believe that view of the atonement.

As such, they wanted the words changed to on that cross when Jesus died, the love of God was magnified. They wanted it changed from his wrath to his love. Now, I do believe the love of God was magnified.

I don't necessarily have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is changing the the truth that it was stated before. You're going from one truth to another, but you're denying the other truth. That's the problem.

Both are true, but you're denying the wrath of God. And again, if you listen to Brian's on, he will say this. Our sin went into Christ as we nailed him to the cross and he took the punishment we gave him and he offers us forgiveness and result and therefore becomes our moral example.

That sounds great. But that's not what the Bible teaches as the purpose and the result of the cross. OK, the next one, I'm just going to kind of run through the next one is the accident theory. This was advocated by Albert Schweitzer in the 1800s, well, 1875 to 1965.

And he basically taught that Christ became enamored with his messiahship and he was preaching the coming kingdom and got himself into a lot of trouble and ended up getting killed. He didn't really see it coming.

Basically, it violates all of our understanding of who Christ is and his purpose in coming. And certainly the passages would say that Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It's an accident.

His death on the cross was not the purpose for his coming. It was something he didn't really see coming. Now, again, I'm probably being very superficial in my explanations of these because I'm not reading everything in from the book.

If you are interested in studying a little further in these, you're welcome to. But here's here is the ultimate point. The Schweitzer's view said this, that the death of Christ is not valuable to us. It wasn't because it was not purposeful and it was accidental.

That's that's a major false view of the cross. The example theory is similar to the moral theory and that or moral influence theory in that it was Christ died as an example or a martyr. And here's the major point in this one.

Christ's death was unnecessary and atoning for sin because sin did not need to be punished. He is a martyr, not in that sense, a savior. And then finally, the governmental theory. This was Grotius in 1583 to 1645 taught that the governmental theory as a reaction to the example theory of Sicinius.

That was the one we just talked about. The governmental theory served as a compromise between the example theory and the view of the reformers. Grotius taught that God forgives sinners without requiring any equivalent payment.

Grotius reasoned that Christ upheld the principle of government in God's law by making a token payment for sin through his death. God accepted the token payment of Christ, set aside the requirement of the law and was able to forgive sinners because the principle of his government had been upheld.

Notice what that last statement I just made. He was able to set aside the requirement of the law. That's a problem when we say God is setting aside his holy standard. Certainly we would not accept that position.

So I've given you seven divergent views. The question then becomes, if you got seven divergent views, could there possibly be a right one? I mean, with 2 ,000 years, I've given you seven of the many others that I could have mentioned.

We've looked at ransom, recapitulation, commercial, moral, accidental, exemplary and governmental. And how could we dare say we think we're right? That's the key. Not that we have a theory. Seems like everybody has a theory.

But how in the world could we say that we're right? Well, I want to make the argument and it's going to have to carry into next week. But I want to make the argument that we can know, not that we're right, but we can know what the Bible teaches about the cross because it's clear.

You say, well, if it's so clear, how do you have seven different views that you've just explained about the atonement? Beloved, there's 7 ,000 different views about the nature of God as being one. You realize even the Jehovah Witnesses would tell you that, yes, God is one, but he's not the only one because they say Jesus is a God.

You have to understand that just because there are multiple views about something doesn't mean there's not a right view. Just because there are variations in belief doesn't mean there's not a correct belief.

And it is not, and I'm going to say this, hopefully this comes out clearly, it is not arrogant to say that we believe that we are standing on the right view if our view is based on what the Bible clearly teaches.

I'm going to give you quickly these six things. I'm going to give you a quick definition, then next week I'm going to break them down more further, more, more, more further. That's a bad, that's a double comparative.

I'm going to break them down more clearly next week. But let me give you just quickly, there are six principles that apply to the atonement which provide for us a solid definition of the atonement and provide for us, I believe, an answer to the question, what happened on the cross?

What is the atonement? The first, and I would say the most important, and the one that is denied by all of these seven that I've already put out to you, is the word substitution. The Bible clearly teaches that Christ died as a substitute for sinners.

And that is the first word I would say is missing from these other divergent views. And you say, well, where in the world do you get the word substitution? I'm going to break it down more later, but if you want to spend some time with the word substitution, find your way to Isaiah 53.

He was bruised for our transgressions. He was wounded for our iniquities. Upon him is the chastisement of us all. And by his stripes, we are healed. The word substitution is not there. But the concept of substitution is found clearly in all of the Old Testament sacrifices, but most clearly Isaiah 53.

The next word is the word redemption. There is a sense in which a payment was made in the cross. And we're going to talk more about that next week. But that's what redemption is. Think about redeem this coupon or redeem this for this payment.

Redemption means payment. The Bible clearly teaches a payment was made, but not to Satan and certainly not to us, but a payment was made to God. And we'll see that next week. Reconciliation, reconciliation.

We've already talked about that to bring warring parties back together. Propitiation, huge word we're going to deal again next week. The word propitiation means to satisfy wrath, to satisfy wrath. Forgiveness, this word is so full of meaning.

But forgiveness in its simplest sense means to not hold something to someone's account. If you think of someone that you have a debt that is owed to them and they say your debt is canceled, they could also say your debt is forgiven.

Your debt is forgiven. And so forgiveness, we're going to talk about that next week. And finally, justification that we would be declared righteous before God. Those six things are all clearly taught in the Bible and they bring us to the only one conclusion.

Christ died on the cross to take the wrath of God for sinners. And in doing so, he provided for them redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness and justification. So we'll talk more about that next week.

I'll break down those, give you more Bible verses to chew on. I hope this was encouraging to you. I hope it was helpful to you. This is this is the heart of the gospel. This is the meat and potatoes of everything we believe.

So please spend some time meditating on what we've talked about and we'll dig in a little deeper next week. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for this opportunity for us to study.

I pray that this has been somewhat helpful in helping us get a better understanding of the atonement. Lord, I pray. I pray that those who would not teach. The simple atonement that Christ bore the wrath of God on the cross, that those who would not teach that would not teach at all for Lord, they are denying the very clear teaching of scripture, Lord, that you would shut their mouths, break their teeth if you have to, Lord, that they might not preach something so atrocious as to say Christ did anything else other than receiving in himself the wrath and penalty that we.

Are all do and in turn gave us the wonderful blessing of his righteousness whereby we are justified. Thank you, God, for him. Thank you for this day and for all that you give us in Christ's name.

Amen.